Our Promise for a Princess was fulfilled! All praise be to God! Our Ethiopian Princess came home to our family in August of 2012. A four year process in total, allowing for great Spiritual testing and growth. It was six months after we had been joined as a family that I decided to Google her former orphanage. To this day I am perplexed as to why I did not do this sooner. The name of her orphanage was on her referral paperwork, so I can submit it is for no other reason than for God's perfect timing in His great plan.
It was an early evening in March of 2013. I googled True Love Children Center. I found a Facebook page. I started scrolling through some pictures and from behind me my daughter comes up and with great delight points to the screen and declares "daddy". The joyful expression on her face I will never forget. It immediately struck my spirit that whoever this man was pictured on my computer screen, he was someone very special in her life.
His name, I would come to find out is Messele Abebe. He is the founder and director of True Love Children Center in Hawassa, Ethiopia. He is called "Papa or Daddy" by the kids at True Love. They absolutely love him and I hear they follow him around like the pied piper. Obviously he had poured much love into our princess for the 20 months she lived there and for that I will always be grateful.
Over the following months, Messele and I formed an "email" relationship. I asked a million questions, and Messele would respond. I wanted to know what it was like for kids at TLCC. What had my daughter experienced? What did she do with her time there? What did they eat? etc. etc. etc. I had questions about her birth family as well. At every turn Messele was transparent and shared and went out of his way to help me.
I felt impressed in my spirit that I was supposed to write a book to share all this new information. Eventually I settled on a children's book that would share a bit about life in an orphanage and our daughter's journey to her new home. We have been blessed with some very special pictures of our daughter and even an appearance she makes in a video of TLCC. One day during our LONG wait, I remember looking at the pictures of our four biological children hanging on the wall across from my prayer spot and welling up in tears thinking we would not have baby pictures of our new daughter. God placed that desire in my heart and overwhelmed me in fulfilling it. So, I completed the book, Keda's Journey and if nothing else, it is a great chronicle for my daughter about her journey in becoming part of our family.
As the needs of TLCC became more apparent to me, God moved in my heart to want to help. I fell in love with the people of Ethiopia and had become particularly moved by the plight of poverty in relation to family preservation. God started to birth the idea within my heart to start a 501 (c) (3) non profit charitable organization. Though I kept seeking to see if there was any way around it, I eventually came to terms that He was calling me to do it. So, SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL ETHIOPIA was born. The goal of SBE is to generate funds to provide for the needs of the poor and disadvantaged women and children in Ethiopia. In relation to True Love this will be achieved through education, trade training, and care for the children at TLCC and the surrounding community of Hawassa. Messele Abebe has been given a vision of expanding TLCC and its community development programs and SBE plans to be a part of that.
We have created T-shirts ($15) and have copies of the children's book "Keda's Journey" ($25) to fundraise. If you are interested in a t-shirt, a book or just want to bless us with a financial donation, please email us at SomethingBeautifulEthiopia@gmail.com. Thanks so much!
We have created T-shirts ($15) and have copies of the children's book "Keda's Journey" ($25) to fundraise. If you are interested in a t-shirt, a book or just want to bless us with a financial donation, please email us at SomethingBeautifulEthiopia@gmail.com. Thanks so much!
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